Icarus 2500
by GhettoTomatoOfDeath
Summary: A new take on the old story of Icarus and Daedalus. Features corrupt Corporation. Done for a school project. Warnings for violence.


"I'm sick of being in this stupid tower..." I whispered. For years, Dad and I had been imprisoned here, but today, we were getting out.

We used to live in Athens, where I had a life. I was on the Olympic Marathon Team and was elected as class president. Everything was perfect. I was well liked, had a girlfriend and straight A's. Everyone said I, Icarus, was headed for greatness. And then that stupid project had come up.

Dad was the chief engineer for the biggest company in the world, Cretan Electronics, when President Minos instructed him to build a completely independent labyrinth, able to supply its occupants with enough food and water for generations. Apparently, it was to be used to hold some sort of creature for research and development. Very top-secret, Dad told me. All I knew was that he was stuck in a dead end job. The pay was well and all, but this project seemed a bit unethical to me. Genetic engineering hadn't been outlawed in 23 countries, including Greece, for nothing.

I had managed to hack into Dad's laptop to read the specifics of the job he was working on now. Being the son of Daedalus, the world renowned architect/engineering genius, this was an easy feat. All it took were a few password decoders and a satellite piggy back add-on.

I remember my initial boredom with the plans, just blueprints and schematics, but then I came across a file labeled "Crossbreed Containment". This file required even more passwords. By now my interest was peaked. What could be this secret?

As I read, my horror became more and more pronounced. Mothers still pregnant with their babies were being used in scientific research to generate some sort of super human from the fetuses by injecting them with an animal's DNA codes. All previous trials had been failures, but now, the company actually had a living, breathing subject. President Minos himself had used his own wife and unborn baby themselves in the final test.

A hologram of a half man, half beast had appeared on the screen. I promptly went to the bathroom and vomited. The image of a teenager's body with a bull's head was too much for me.

After having directed the cleaning robots to tidy up the area around the toilet, I returned to the kitchen, only to discover my father, home from a quick jaunt to his office, sitting at his computer. I almost could have died. He knew I'd seen the files; I'd neglected to exit out of them while trying to keep my stomach contents from spilling everywhere.

"Icarus," Dad had said to me, an odd look upon his face, as if he were going to burst into tears, "how much did you see?"

I looked down at my feet. The sorrow in his voice made me feel like vomiting again. I hated to disappoint my father. However, it seemed strange that he was getting so emotional over a simple snoop into his files. I used to go through his projects quite often when I was younger, and he'd only given me a slap on the back of the hand and a knowing grin.

"I saw all of it." The mumbles poured out of me like a river as I described the details of what I saw. The light in our apartment seemed to bright and happy for the moment, for that was the moment when my father began to silently cry, the salty fluid running into his dark beard.

I ran the few feet to him and inquired as to what was wrong. Attempting to swallow sobs, he moaned out something along the lines of "They'll take you as well". I didn't understand at the time, but later on that night, those tears would make some inkling of sense.

After giving my obviously distressed father a capsule of Sleeper Agent Red, I completed my Virtual History homework and went to bed. I felt really bad about the whole invasion of privacy thing, but it wasn't too much of a big thing to be worried over. Really, lots of corrupt CEO's committed atrocious crimes against humanity, so it was nothing new. It happened a hundred times over all around the world. But back then, I didn't realize just how far some people would go to keep affairs like that private.

They came in the middle of the night, six of them. All carrying stun guns and sedative laced nets. I could hear them. I had reached for the burglar alarm on the wall next to my bed, but it had been deactivated. Wasn't everything made by Cretan Electronics guaranteed not to malfunction?

I jumped up, fully intent on fighting my way out with my father. Something crashed into my door several times. Hair slicked into tall spikes, one of the intruders burst into my room. He rushed me, and I threw a few lucky punches. I personally thought I was putting up a good fight at the time, but in retrospect, you just couldn't do much when you were a scrawny kid of fourteen.

A net was tossed over me as I kicked and argued. A second thug must have came to help.

I heard shouts from my Dad's room, and I called out to him. Hurriedly, the man attempting to subdue me clamped a hand around my mouth. They must have orders to keep this kidnapping as quiet as possible.

In about a minute, they had Dad and I in the living room, on our knees,facing the sole picture of my mother on the wall. She died long ago, and the only thing I can remember of her was the way her sweet hair always smelled and how she'd sing me to sleep in Ancient Greek. I understand completely the quiet fury Dad was quaking with next to me when a heavily tattooed gang member sent the portrait crashing to the floor.

"So, the inventor and his little son, huh?" a voice that was heavily accented with a Korean accent said. I turned, and a man wearing dark sunglasses and a lilac suit faced me. He held a small light in the shape of a pen up to my vibrant green eyes, flashing it as it sprayed a jolt of red light inside of my cornea. The light buzzed around my head for a moment, sending waves of pain through my skull before shooting back out into the pen. The Korean man looked quite satisfied as he plugged the pen into a port on his hand held computer and saw the results. Ah, a magi-scan. It looked for a match of information in your brain, and, if there was a match, you knew that info.

"Looks like you're going with your dad, kid. Bet you wish you hadn't decided to stick your nose into the King's business."

Everyone referred to President Minos as "King". It just seemed to fit. He lorded over almost all of the technology in Eastern Europe and was expanding west.

I wondered why Dad hadn't said anything yet, and then I looked over to him. They'd used a primitive adhesive across his mouth, something I understand to be called Duct-tape. As my father looked over at me with sad eyes, I felt a surge of energy. Rising to my feet after somehow shrugging the net off of me, I grabbed a coat stand and rushed the man appearing to be boss. Take out the leader, take them all out.

As I smashed the heavy bronze over the Asian's head, satisfaction flowed into me. I wanted more. I wanted to kill this man. I kicked him in the stomach twice before the rest of the men came to the conclusion that their leader was in danger and tackled me to the ground. I fought back with my new found strength as my father looked over in amazement. He was bound, hands and feet, otherwise, I'm sure he would've helped me. No matter, I still got my licks in. I clawed, kicked, scratched, and bit, all the while screaming profanities. I had never felt so alive as in that moment. I knew for a fact at least two of the men were unconscious, possibly dead. You learned things from being in a traditional Spartan school in the Summer.

Finally, one of them managed to inject a needle into my arm, and everything went dark quickly. The blood pumping rapidly through my body from my battle fever didn't help. The last thing I saw before losing all sense of reality was my father's look of pride as he saw his son go down like a real Greek would, all those millenia ago.

I awoke in a strange place. Sunlight streamed in from a large window, and I could smell the sea. Were we on the coast?

I looked around the narrow room. I was dressed in my pajamas from last night, but I was lying in a strange bed. The stone walls of the room were full of odd nicks and scratches. A wooden door was the only other feature besides a small basin and mirror. I'd only seen rooms like this in my Virtual History classes, primitive as this was. After standing up and feeling a terrible aching pain course through my whole body, I went and looked in the mirror. Various cuts and nicks were decorated my face while my left wrist seemed to be sprained, perhaps broken. Crap. Forgetting about the pain for now, however, I charged through the wooden door into another room much like the one I just left, only larger and better furnished. There, my father sat talking to King Minos himself. I felt another rage coming on. It was he who had sent those men last night?

"Oh, why hello Icarus, I was just speaking with your father here. You're just in time!" The pompous fool wore a lopsided grin on his face. Dressed in rich silks and actually wearing a gilded crown, he was most definitely mad with power. A rumor still floats around today that he had his company develop an alchemy machine that would turn organic matter into gold and had tested it on his own daughter.

"As I was saying Daedalus, I just couldn't let you wander around with the knowledge of the great containment complex's inner-workings in your head. I locked you away for the company's safety and also the nation's security. You wouldn't want the bloody Turkish getting a hold of that info, now would you?"

Father did not speak, only nodding his head.

Minos continued on. "Though, just because you are no longer free, does not mean that you have to stop inventing. Whatever supplies you need, I'll just have them sent up here. All you have to do is shout to the guard below the window. You are still an asset to the corporation. Now," he said, standing from a wicker chair, "I have to go attend to my son." Through the window, I could hear the wild cries of a bull.

"Dad," I said as Minos descended through the window's basket elevator, "do you have any ideas? We can't live our lives out in this medieval torture cell!"

Father laughed in that good natured way of his. At this moment I knew we'd be okay. Why, we were Daedalus and Icarus, the great Father-Son set of genii!

That very morning, father and I began to formulate. Minos had left paper and pen, books and tools. Some way of escape would surely present itself to us. With two great minds like ours, it wouldn't be very hard to escape from what we soon discovered to be a tower. In my eyes, a tower I like to call The Tower That Ate People.

Weeks passed, then months, before we had a blueprint ready. We worked through storms and raging seas, calm days and windy nights. What else was there to do? Father and I created a list of materials and sent them down to the guard below, following Minos' instructions. About a week later, all kinds of gadgetry was sent up in a basket, pulley style. Just as we planned. My dad and I were to be no one's prisoner.

Two years have passed since that first day. However, today is a new beginning, a clear sunny morning. Very sunny in fact. I can't wait to be in the open again. The wings are ready. Father assures me that they are the best inventions he's ever made, even better than his great labyrinth. All made of beautiful chrome and silver, they are perfection. The motors are silent, only a slight vibration giving hint that they are ran by something other than pure air power.

The plan is to fly to Sicily. Minos' control of technology does not reach Italy's football. Fly to Sicily, and fly to a new life.

After Father and I strap the wings on, we take a last look at the dismal pair of rooms. I spent some of the prime years of my adolescence here. These are the rooms where Father built his great wings. We have no regrets towards leaving this place.

The window is big enough for the two of us. We climb on the sill and press the activation buttons on the wing's rigs. We come to life.

I soar out of the window and laugh gleefully. Free. Free. FREE! Above the clouds, I fly. Over the roar of the salty wind, my father yells something to me. I do not hear it. Probably some meaningless safety warning. No matter, I shall be fine. I know everything about the wings and their safety precautions. I helped design them!

Dipping low towards the water, giggling with the dolphins is magic. Soaring high, singing with the birds. Simply decadence. The Aegean looms beneath me, her sparkling waters enticing me as I sail away from hated Crete west to my new life. Father is yelling again, and I look back. He is making wild gestures up while still trying to control his set. I see an airplane. Perhaps that's what he meant. Well, the metal bird was gone, so it was time for this flesh one to see how high he could go. I twirled gracefully skyward, feeling the warmth of the sun graze my face. I couldn't hear his shouts anymore; I was too high. And then I realized it. _I was too high!_ It was common sense that extreme temperature change was fatal to technology. I'd gone from the coolness of the sea spray to intense warmth. The heat from that glowing ball of hydrogen was too much for my poor electronic wings. I could hear the circuit boards pop and fry. Dad must have been trying to warn me!

I struggled to get the auxiliary wings into some kind of shape as the main set failed, but backup was unavailable. Their circuit set had been destroyed as well. I was plummeting. Down, down, down. Past the birds and their concerned cries. Past the clouds. I kept falling and falling, until finally, the once lovely Aegean gazed up at me with cold hatred. I was going to crash and it was going to hurt.

I was vaguely aware of hearing the dolphins again before I slammed into the sea as if it were concrete. Instantly I knew every bone in my body was broken. I shouldn't have been even conscious of that. The Greek equivalent of the coast guard had already been on their way as I plummeted, but the only thing they could do now was pull my broken form out of the water.

My final thought as Father and I's invention sunk me down to the bottom of the sea was hope that he would make it to Sicily as planned. Maybe then he'd find true happiness as an inventor. Then the pain became too much. I gasped, and water rushed into my lungs. Sparks played before my eyes as my last sight was that of the glorious sky through clear waters. I was free.


End file.
